


imagine i'm in love with you, it's easy cos i know (i've imagined i'm in love with you, many many many times before)

by lovelyflowersinherhair



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Camp Riverdale Challenge, F/F, F/M, M/M, Tumblr: riverdale-events, mentioned Betty Cooper/Archie Andrews, mentioned Fred Andrews/Hermione Lodge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 00:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20267275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyflowersinherhair/pseuds/lovelyflowersinherhair
Summary: “You can’t just ask people who their soulmates are, Mary. It’s rude. It’s like asking people what star sign they are, or where they go to church, whatever the latest Northside flavor of the week is.”Alice Cooper doesn't believe in soulmates. Unfortunately for Mary, she thinks that she's Alice's.Too bad she's wrong.[a 6 and 1 times fic]





	imagine i'm in love with you, it's easy cos i know (i've imagined i'm in love with you, many many many times before)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic sort of got away from me and the characters twisted the soulmate concept on its head. I apologize in advance for that, and for FP. He is...churlish. I tagged all pairings that appear in some form in this fic. I hope that you like my offering for day one of camp riverdale: soulmates. Please note that this fic does take into consideration that if the characters are in their early 40s and Hal and Alice were married for 25 years that they got married at 18.

[I]

“Well well well,” a familiar voice drawled in Mary’s ear, and she practically jumped out of the booth she sat in in shock, before she settled on shooting FP Jones a murderous glare. “What? I was just expressing shock that Alice would  _ dare _ associate herself with the likes of Hermione Gomez.” She heard him make a clucking sound. “I thought we’d taught her better than that.” 

“We?” Mary asked, and she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “If you’re involving Fred in what you consider amusing antics and what the majority of the world considers to be bullying, I will have your head. I don’t care if he is your soulmate.” 

FP laughed. She scowled. “What is so funny?” 

“You think Fred’s my soulmate?” FP demanded. “Fred. Fred Andrews?” 

Mary nodded. As someone who hadn’t yet experienced meeting her own soulmate, she had busied herself observing those who were lucky enough to have done so. Fred and FP had both developed the ability to see color, so she had assumed that they were both soulmates, and deeply in the closet. There had been no other explanation for it in her mind. 

“If Fred isn’t your soulmate...who is? Hermione?” 

“I’d sooner bugger Fred,” FP said after a moment. “You can’t just ask people who their soulmates are, Mary. It’s rude. It’s like asking people what star sign they are, or where they go to church, whatever the latest Northside flavor of the week is.” She watched as he slid in beside her and stole a handful of fries off her plate. “Shit. I’m starving.” 

“Were you raised in a barn?” Hermione’s voice demanded, and Mary felt a chill sweep over her as the Vixen slipped into the booth, followed by Alice Smith, and she blinked rapidly, as the colors of the world switched from black and white to what Mary assumed was color, not that she wanted anyone to notice. There was no way in hell Mary was going to admit that she was Alice’s soulmate, not unless the blonde admitted it first. “Honestly, Forsythe, it’s like you haven’t seen food in weeks.” 

“I haven’t,” he quipped. “I mean, unless you could eating out at Al’s as having a meal.” He smirked. Mary felt nauseated. Alice simply rolled her eyes. “What did I say?” 

“You can finish that,” Mary said, and she pushed her plate over in FP’s direction. “I’m not hungry anymore.” 

Hermione rolled her eyes. “What are you, a prude? Did you take a vow of celibacy or something? Everyone knows she and Jones fuck.” 

“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for mixed company,” she insisted. “We’re in public.” 

Alice rolled her eyes. “The only issue I have with being in public is that we’re stuck with Hermione here, who thinks FP and I are Southside scum.” Mary heard a crack of gum. “My time is valuable, isn’t it, Jonesy?” 

“Huh? Yeah. Whatever, Al.” 

* * *

[II]

“It’s so nice that we found each other,” Fred said one morning, and Mary nodded along, not certain how to respond to her husband’s train of thought. Surely he didn’t think…? “It’s so rare that soulmates discover each other so young,” he said. He did. Mary tried not to cringe. 

“You think we’re soulmates?” 

Fred nodded. “Of course we are,” he said in a decisive tone. “We have to be. FP and Gladys aren’t soulmates, and look at them, look at their marriage, and compare it to us.” 

Mary really did not want to compare anything that she did to Gladys Jones. Such comparisons were offensive to her. “Fred. They got married because they don’t know how to use a condom, and FP has it in his head that the appropriate route to take was legitimizing his child despite the fact that neither of them should be in the same state with the other, let alone in the same room.” She sighed. “And that horrible name that they gave that child...?”

“Jughead?”

“I meant Forsythe the third,” she said with a sigh. “Jughead manages to be an improvement on it.” 

“I’m so glad that we’re living in Riverdale again,” Fred said after a moment. “And what a lucky break that Mom gave us the house. And that Hal and Alice live next door. I’m sure Archie and Betty will be fast friends when they meet at school today.” 

“I would like to remind you that I wanted to stay in Chicago,” Mary said. She raked her fingers through her hair. “This is a trial run, Fred. I don’t want you to think that this is going to be permanent.” The doorbell rang, and she took it as an opportunity to leave Fred with his thoughts, which he would hopefully keep to himself, and not bestow upon the neighborhood. 

Alice Cooper stood on the other side of the door, a picnic basket in her hand, and Mary did her best not to goggle at the sight. She had long fantasized about going on a picnic with her soulmate, even though it was clear that Alice would never be bothered to give her the time of day. And yet, there she was. 

“Would you close your mouth?” Alice demanded, and Mary felt herself flush uncontrollably. “Honestly, Mary, you are not a blushing schoolgirl. There is no need for you to stare at me like that.” 

“But you want to go on a picnic…? How did you know?” 

Alice glowered at her. Mary wondered if she had miscalculated. “We’re not going on a picnic,” she said after a moment. “I brought over blueberry muffins. Forsythe informed me that Frederick was moving in next door to me, and as block captain of the neighborhood watch, I am obligated to meet every new family in person. Even if the thought of meeting them fills me with disdain.” 

“You still talk to FP?” 

Alice’s scowl deepened. “It’s a small town, Mary. He was annoying me with his exuberance this morning at the school drop off...and I noticed a boy with a thatch of red hair. I can do the math.” 

“Howdy, neighbor!” Fred said, as he slinked into the entranceway, and helped himself to a muffin, shoving it in his mouth and swallowing it with barely any chewing. Alice’s lips pursed. “Mary and I were just talking about how wonderful it is that we’re soulmates, and you and Hal are too.”

“Harold and I aren’t soulmates,” Alice said after a moment. “Why the hell would you even believe in such a thing. I can’t remember a day when I couldn’t see color. If you ask me, it’s all an elaborate farce.”

* * *

  
  


[III]

“My mom doesn’t believe in soulmates,” Mary Andrews heard Betty Cooper say as the three kids piled into the house, dropping their snow-sodden boots and outerwear by her front door in a heap. She didn’t have any idea what had brought the conversation on, or what had possessed Alice to even discuss such things in front of the children, and she stiffened slightly, and gritted her teeth, not wanting to take her irritation out on the child. “I mean, she acknowledges that they exist,” she continued. “She just says that their existence is inconsequential.” The second grader stumbled over the word. “That she and Dad aren’t soulmates and they get along just fine.” 

Mary watched as she squeezed Archie’s shoulder. “So, don’t worry about not seeing color yet, Little Archie. Just because Juggie and I can doesn’t mean that we can’t be married when we’re eighteen, like you asked me to.” 

Archie nodded. Mary cringed. “I’d like that, Betty,” he said, his grin exposing the fact that his two front teeth were missing. “I’d marry you now, but you say we’re too young.” 

“Like I said, Little Archie,” she said. “When we’re eighteen.” 

“You  _ don’t _ have to get married at eighteen,” Mary interjected, knowing better and yet unable to stop herself at the same time. “You don’t have to do  _ everything _ that your mother tells you to do, you know that, right, Betty?”

Perhaps she was somewhat harsh. Betty’s composure had faltered somewhat, and her cheery beam looked forced. “I think I’m going to head home,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Juggie. I’ll see your sister tomorrow.”

“Betty--”

Her eyes flashed. “What?”   
  


“You don’t have to leave,” she assured her. “I just wanted to make sure that you knew that you didn’t have to listen to your mother’s opinions on things, that’s all.” 

Of course Alice would say that she didn’t believe in soulmates, given that Mary had developed her ability to see color in a booth at Pops, directly across from Alice and Hermione, and the blonde had rejected the implication that they were soulmates entirely. Of course she would be encouraging Elizabeth to follow in her footsteps and ruin Jughead’s chance of his soulmate bond maturing. It was typical of her. 

But that didn’t make it right for Mary to take it out on her daughter. 

“My dad said it,” she said after a moment. “Good Cooper Girls marry Good Northside Boys when they turn eighteen. My mom just wanted to be a Good Cooper Girl.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I really should go. I don’t want my mom to worry.”

“Because you’re with me?” Jughead demanded. “Is that why she’ll worry?”

“She doesn’t like me outside in the snow,” Betty said. “Not when there’s a storm coming.”

Betty had hastened herself into her wet clothes and slammed the door behind her, with entirely too much speed. Mary hadn’t even been able to tell her that her backpack was still left behind. 

The chime of the doorbell was practically foreboding.

“Alice--” 

“Save it, Mary,” Alice said, her tone unamused. “How dare you reduce my daughter to tears because you have fabricated some sort of torrid  _ attraction _ between the two of us that you think I am willfully ignoring, and that I am here to assure you does not in any way exist?”   
  


“How can you say that?” Mary demanded. “You’ve never even given it a shot! If you just acknowledged that we were soulmates and ever for a second--”   
  


“What? You think we’re soulmates? You have to be kidding me. I’ve been seeing color since FP and I shared a damn crib in Sunnyside. You? You are married to a hindrance to me that I wish had never  _ left _ Chicago.” 

“But I saw color,” she insisted. “When you and Hermione sat across from me at the diner.”

“That would be Hermione’s doing,” she said. “Not mine. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you lay one on me?”

“What?” 

Alice tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Of the two of us, I’ve actually kissed my soulmate. So I know what it feels like. Maybe the universe did fuck up and tie me to you.”

* * *

  
  


[IV]

“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t find out about you kissing my wife?” Fred demanded of Alice, who simply stared at him. “You fed her a web of bullshit and now she’s gone and bought it. She seems to think that we’re better off apart! Because of you!”

“Did you really think that I wouldn’t find out about you faking a robbery and firing FP because you couldn’t stand the thought of the two of you being equal partners?” Alice demanded, and she arched her brows regally. “Honestly, Fred. You hit him where it hurts, and I hit  _ you _ where it hurts. Besides. I was sort of intrigued by the thought of having two soulmates. It was flattering.”

“He’s back in that gang, Alice, he picked that gang over me  _ yet _ again--”   
  


A Chesire-like grin crossed Alice’s features, and she held Fred’s gaze with hers. “How delectable. You mean to tell me that FP is  _ your _ soulmate? But, of course, you’re not his.” She shook her head. “Being a Serpent will allow FP to provide for his family, Fred. You made it clear that he was barely worthy of being bailed out of jail. That was an unfair buyout, and you knew it.” She sighed. “As for Mary. I had nothing to do with her leaving.” 

“It would appear to me that she is unhappy to remain in Riverdale, and has in fact given you a choice to go with her, which, of course, because you have created the fantasy of this town in your head as your ideal...you won’t.” 

“You say all the time that soulmates don’t need to be happy--”   
  


“You think Mary is going to  _ Chicago _ because her soulmate lives there? Wow, Fred. You really are naive. Who do you even think Mary’s soulmate is? It isn’t you, and it isn’t me, and we both know it isn’t FP.” 

Fred shrugged his shoulders. “I assumed someone from law school--”   
  


“Why on earth would Mary think I was her  _ soulmate _ then? Just because I think that being someone’s soulmate is a ludicrous concept doesn’t mean that I don’t know how they work, you stupid ass. It’s Hermione. Obviously.”

Fred’s jaw dropped. Alice wanted to take a picture. 

“Hermione Lodge? My Hermione?” 

“Technically, and legally? I think she’s Hiram’s.”

* * *

[V]

“You’re a rat bastard, you know that, right?” FP demanded. “What the fuck are you doing here? This is a biker bar -- this is my biker bar -- on the wrong side of town, Fred. You’ve made that pretty damn clear what side is the right one since you came back.” 

“Your wife left you, didn’t she?” 

“I told you, Fred, the answer is no. It was no when we were teenagers and I was hooking up with Allie in the damn girls locker room, and it’s sure as  _ fuck _ no now, when you’d probably ply me with drinks and have your way with me and then report me to the damn Sheriff.” 

“I wasn’t propositioning you,” he said. FP squinted at Fred, and decided that that was probably an accurate guess, given that he was resembling a hound dog as he slumped at the bar, nursing a beer. “I was just wondering why Mary sent me these.” He shoved the sheaf of papers in the vague direction of FP, who was seriously wondering how many drinks Fred had had. “Where’d Pinkie Pie go?” 

“Toni? She’s on break,” he said. “She been serving you?” 

“...uh, she took over from Pig Nose,” Fred said after a moment of thought. “He uh, he said he knew how to handle Northsiders, and he kept giving me shots of tequila and claimin’ Alice Cooper does them all the time. Alice doesn’t drink. Just wine.” 

“Dammit Hog Eye,” FP said, and he ran his hand through his beard. “Okay, first of all. Mary is asking you for a divorce. Second of all why on  _ earth _ would you drink  _ multiple _ shots of tequila when you are  _ on the Southside _ of town? Third of all, wine is an alcoholic beverage, Fred. Poor Alice, having to live next door to the likes of you. And all this time, I thought she drank because of Hal.” 

“Not drunk,” Fred insisted. “How can you say that to me? We’re ‘poseded to be soulmates!”

“No, Fred. I told you. You might have seen color when you saw me for the first time, but I  _ have _ a soulmate. She’s obnoxious enough. I don’t need a second. Whatever it is you feel about me...I don’t return those feelings. I can’t return those feelings.”

FP poured himself a glass of rum. Screw sobriety. “You’re going to sober up,” he said. “I’m going to call Alice and have her drag you out of here by the ear, and then you are going to go to bed and sober up. Then, in the morning, you’re going to pour yourself a cup of coffee and sign the damn papers. Screw you and this soulmate bullshit.”

If Fred had ever given a damn about him he would have come through when he’d needed him to, instead of firing him after blaming him for something he was  _ sure _ Gladys had done. And then the damn fucker had the nerve to come crying to him when  _ one thing _ in his damn perfect life had gone wrong? FP wasn’t having a damn second of it. 

“You know, Fred...you really piss me off when you bring up this bullshit about how I’m your soulmate, because when Jellybean was in and out of the damn hospital you fired me. You left me damn near high and dry while I had bills to pay and my damn baby girl was sick. And I thought when the angel donation came in that it was from you, you know? Like maybe you was feeling guilty about having done me wrong while Jellybelly was fighting for her damn life? She was just a baby.” He took a gulp of the drink. “So I reached out to Al to see if she could figure out who the fuck had done it, and she said that it was her. Not you. You didn’t give a shit about me. She cared. She cared about me, and about Jellybelly. Made a damn blanket too.” He downed the rest of the drink in one gulp. “Get bent, Fred. I’m done having you excuse all your actions based on the fact that you have a twisted view of how soulmates work.”

* * *

[I]

“Of course I’ll go with you to the dance,” Hermione said softly, touched to be asked. “You realize that we probably can’t do more than that, and it will have to look like we’re going with Fred, right?” 

“Why is that?”

“Because I won’t let Hiram hurt you,” she said. “It was one thing when he was threatening Fred. He knows Fred isn’t really his competition. I told him that we weren’t soulmates. And he knows...he knows that I’m not his.” 

“He knows?” Mary sounded surprised. “How…?”

“Hiram still sees in black and white,” Hermione said breezily. “We’ve come to an understanding of sorts. I gave him a daughter. I just...I want you to be prepared about the realities of the world I live in before we go public with anything. You understand, right? And there’s Veronica to consider, of course. She was so hurt that Fred and I were dating...it really did a number on our relationship. I’d want to tell her about our being soulmates.” 

“Where is Veronica? Where’s Archie?” 

“Oh, you didn’t know? I thought Fred was going to tell you. We’ve been invited to the...well, we’ve been invited next door. Alice and...her  _ snake wielding _ soulmate are hosting a pre-dance dinner,” she said. She rolled her eyes. “Fred and the kids have already gone over.” 

“What happened to Hal?” 

“Apparently he’s been arrested,” Hermione said. “The man has no finesse. He was caught tampering with a murder investigation. Red handed!” 

“...what murder investigation?” Mary asked wearily as they headed into the house next door. “Surely not--”   
  


“And a toast to a bang up investigation job done by Harold,” Hermione heard Alice say, accompanied by the sound of glasses clinking. “Married to me for twenty five years and never learned that following your soulmate’s  _ every whim _ is foolish.”

“To kissing cousins?” Hermione heard Archie say. “Or is that not appropriate? Betty just stepped on me.” 


End file.
